Godwin Inyang's Blog, page 24

All around
me, crops and trees richly bear fruits:

Pears,
corn, papayas, avocados and mangoes;

Rain has
returned to help water their roots;

In the
farms, people work the ground with their hoes.

Let’s learn
from them – still time our dream seeds to sow.

In
a palm-wine joint we talked and argued

Why
we from the country should break away

Till
a war vet cut in and had this to say:



'When
we team up and call for war,

Let's
not forget food and medicine would dry up;

When
we fret and ask for war,

Let's
not forget our means of transport would pack up;



'When
we sing and drum for war,

Let's
not forget hamlets and towns would be ransacked;

 

Marching gradually deep into the New Year:

All resolutions kept or have you broken some?

Realign yourself if so but if a beam you wear

Cause the right boot isn't on wrong foot worn -

Hold on tight and see your game this year is won.

I was ready to paint

A sombre sky with rainbow

But she spirited the brush away;

I was ready to wet

The drought-stricken land with rain

But she steered the clouds off;

I was ready to light

The night with the moon

But she blanketed it with her gloom.



Beautiful bud,

I'd waited this long for you

To unfurl so I'd feast my eyes

On your radiant petals

And my nostrils on your scent

But

The muse can fly so he alights on your mind;

The muse can sing so he pipes a song

And the poet picks his drums, flute and gong

Engraving on paper for the world to find.



The poet the muse on secrecy does bind -

What mouth knows the one to tell is the tongue;

Who'd tell secrets in breath better than lung?

A good poet does not leave his muse behind.



What is an actor without an exact

Language being the big city it is

Has innumerable words as its citizens

And occupying mountaintops and abyss

Are multiple and colourful denizens.



Vulgar occupies the slimy gutter

As informal inhabits the city's wings.

Through its elevated and gold-framed shutter

Formal surveys his lesser fellow beings.



Prose in basic form is mortar and bricks;

It is also the plain track and alley